


An Accurate Copy

by PoliticalBloodTea



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Mentions of Emotional Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 09:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5703052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoliticalBloodTea/pseuds/PoliticalBloodTea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cisco recognized his own work in Zoom's costume.  Earth 2 holds secrets he doesn't want to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Accurate Copy

**Author's Note:**

> Okay this was _supposed_ to be fore Day 16 of Barrisco Month but obviously that didn't happen. Better late than never I say!
> 
> Title from Pagan Poetry by Björk.

Cisco couldn’t stop thinking about Zoom’s suit, it was giving him a headache. Any engineer could recognize their own work a mile off, and Cisco knew that Zoom’s suit was his work, or at least Earth 2 Cisco’s work. He couldn’t believe no one else had pointed it out yet, besides the fact that it was a demonic hell-suit it looked identical to Barry’s suit. Waiting for one of them to accuse his counterpart of working with the enemy was making his skin feel prickly. The headache follows him to bed and into his dreams.

He dreamed that he was Earth 2 Cisco, locked in a cage like Harry’s daughter, forced to make tech for Zoom, tortured when he didn’t comply. He tossed and turned in his sleep, soaking the sheets with sweat. The dream shifted suddenly, he was no longer locked up, instead he was working in a workshop that was set up nearly the same way his workshop at STAR Labs was laid out. Zoom’s suit was in his hands and he was running his fingers over it, checking for imperfections a machine probably could have found more easily but he enjoyed being more hands on with his work.

A gust of wind and Cisco expected to see Barry, but in the dream it was Zoom, crackling with lightning that made Cisco’s head hurt more. He didn’t feel the fear he expected to feel if he ever saw Zoom up close again, even in a dream. Zoom was standing right in front of him and part of Cisco knew he should want to run, but he didn’t, he felt mostly calm. Even when Zoom reached out a clawed hand and tilted Cisco’s chin up with the tip of his fingers his heart rate increased but it didn’t feel like panic, Cisco couldn’t place what he was feeling. Zoom’s fingers were gentler than he would have expected, but he could feel the lightning crackling across his skin and the buzz in his skin turned into a low hum. His headache swelled at the same time and he closed his eyes against the pain. It reached a peak, he felt like his head was going to split open and he wished Zoom would let him go. As quickly as it had increased the pain vanished entirely and the dream faded to black. Cisco rolled over in his bed, settling into a peaceful sleep.

 

Cisco didn’t want to wake up. The bed was warm and soaked in sunshine and his headache was blissfully, finally, gone. He buried his face further into his pillow and starfished his limbs, stretching to every corner of the bed. It was Sunday, nothing pressing going on, he could just lie there for a few more minutes.

Except as he woke up slowly he began to realize something was off. His sheets were too soft, and his bed at home was in no way positioned to catch the sun, always blocked by the building next door. Cisco’s body instantly flooded with adrenaline and he jolted out of the bed, feet landing on cold wood. The room was huge, like the house Dr. Wells used to own. Everything about it was a weird mix of 1940s and new technology, like his mom’s idea of steampunk.

Cisco recognized Earth 2 from Harry and Jay’s descriptions, but it didn’t make him feel any less panicked. He had no idea where on Earth 2 he was, how he had gotten there, and how he was going to get back. He cast his eyes around the room hoping to find a clue, maybe even win the cosmic lottery and find the same breach he had been tossed through.

The room was massive, probably ¾ the size of his whole apartment. The bed was positioned at one end of the room, nearest to a floor to ceiling window that looked out onto a stretch of lawn that ended abruptly at a forest. Cisco got the feeling there weren’t any other houses around for a good distance. There was a computer on a desk that was the same weird mix of old and new, and framed photos that were at just the wrong angle for Cisco to see from where he was standing.

He padded to the desk quietly, hoping the house was empty. He wasn’t looking forward to trying to explain what he was doing in his pajamas in a stranger’s house, and he thought he might cry if he was thrown in jail on Earth 2.

He froze when he saw the picture; looked like he wasn’t going to be arrested for trespassing. Every picture showed him and Barry, together and apart. Cisco’s Earth 2 counterpart looked nearly identical to him, but Earth 2 Barry wore a bow tie and truly heinous hair that Cisco looked forward to telling Barry all about when he got back home. They were also definitely a couple. That was something to think about later when Cisco found a way to get back to Earth 1.

Hoping that Barry was home Cisco wandered out into the hall, calling his name. He got no response and there were no other noises from inside the house, although it was so huge he could probably drop a pan on one end of the house and not be heard on the other. It looked like the kind of house they’d show on MTV Cribs. As he left the bedroom Cisco thought “And that’s where the magic happens,” and smiled to himself. He had no idea how either his Earth 2 counterpart and Barry had afforded this place.

He hoped that he was still in or near Central City, because his only plan for getting home was using the breech in the basement of STAR Labs. Cisco figured his best bet was to search the house for clues. The hallway immediately outside the bedroom was long and lined with way too many doors. There were also pictures on the wall, always of Barry and Cisco. Cisco felt like something was off but he couldn’t quite place it.

A picture of Barry and Harrison Wells standing inside the cortex at STAR Labs brought him up short. Harry had never mentioned knowing Earth 2 counterpart, and Barry looked like more than a low level lab rat that Harry had only met long enough for the photo op. The picture brought back all the old suspicions Cisco had been harboring about Harry when he first showed up, but he didn’t have time to think about it. His main goal was making it home.

The house seemed to be only two stories, and the bottom floor was the same big bright white expanse the bedroom had been. It all seemed oddly impersonal. None of the things that Cisco himself had around his own apartment were on the walls, and he suddenly realized what had bothered him about all the photos upstairs, Joe and Iris were nowhere to be found. Cisco knew Barry had had tons of pictures of his family displayed at his old apartment. Even if Barry’s mom was alive on this Earth and his dad never went to jail Cisco still expected to see their pictures around. Cisco didn’t know anyone who valued family more than Barry did.

“Barry?” he called again, wondering if Barry was around but hadn’t heard him upstairs. The house was silent around him and Cisco was starting to feel spooked out. Something did not feel right. He needed to figure out where he was and then figure out how to get to STAR Labs. Earth 2 was uncanny valley and he wanted no part of it.

He spotted his saving grace in an alcove off the giant living room, another computer like the one upstairs. It looked basically the same as the ones on Earth 1, and he pounced. He’d just do a quick google or zoozle or whatever they had here on Earth 2 and figure out how to get to STAR Labs from wherever the hell he was.

The spooky feeling he couldn’t shake and his curiosity led him to take a detour first, though, searching first his name. How often do you get a chance to google your doppelganger? Earth 2 Cisco didn’t seem that far off from him, the only major difference was that he worked at Mercury Labs instead of STAR Labs. He wondered why Earth 2 Cisco had chose differently, because Cisco had turned down an offer from Mercury Labs in favor of STAR Labs. He tried not to think that maybe he just hadn’t gotten the job at STAR Labs, that a Harrison Wells who wasn’t secretly an evil future villain didn’t find him worthy.

Barry’s Earth 2 history was a little more alarming. He worked for STAR Labs, which Cisco already knew, but digging further back he found that Barry’s mom had still been murdered and his dad had still gone to jail for it - Cisco really hoped he wasn’t going to bump into Earth 2 Eobard Thawne any time soon - but there was no mention of Joe. From what Cisco could tell from the sparse details in his STAR Labs bio Barry had been dumped into the foster system and left there.

Cisco couldn’t imagine it, a Barry who grew up without any family. Barry needed family like the Enterprise needed a warp core. Earth 2 Barry was probably much different from the Barry he knew, and Cisco once again felt like he had woken up in a stranger’s home and was glad neither Barry nor Earth 2 Cisco were home. If Earth 2 Cisco was even still in this universe. Perhaps when Cisco had ended up on Earth 2, Earth 2 Cisco had been kicked back to Earth Prime. Cisco figured it might be possible if Earth 2 Cisco had the same powers as he did. He’d figure it out later. He’d spent enough time here, it was time to go home.

He also wanted to get out of there before Barry came home.

Luckily the Google overlord knew your location in any universe, and told him that he was an hour away from STAR Labs. The house really was in the middle of nowhere, Cisco couldn’t imagine what would have made him agree to move all the way out here, he loved living in the city.

He found keys sitting on the island in the middle of the massive kitchen, and a door leading from the kitchen that must have been the garage. Was it really stealing if it was technically your own car? It wasn’t like the cops could nab him for it.

The door didn’t lead to a garage, instead Cisco was faced with stairs leading down to a basement. He should leave it, he should just try to find a car and go home, but the basement wasn’t dark and he could hear the low hum of machinery. Earth 2 Cisco probably had a work space down there and Cisco was pretty curious to see what his counterpart was working on in his free time. Now that Cisco felt like he had a concrete way of getting back home he felt a little more relaxed, a little more willing to indulge his curiosity.

He regrets it almost immediately when he reaches the bottom of the stairs and is greeted by the workshop from his dreams. Cisco’s heart pounded as he took in the eerily similar layout to his own workshop at the Lab. The biggest difference was the display case holding an empty mannequin like the one they kept in the cortex for the Flash costume. He couldn’t pretend that this case was for the Flash, though, because on a table a spare Zoom costume lay discarded, surrounded by tools like it had been worked on recently.

Everything, the house and its weird feeling, the workshop and the costume and the fact that Cisco recognized his own work were all leading to one conclusion that he found himself backing away from, mentally and physically. He tried to take a step backwards up the stairs and stumbled. He reached out an arm to break his fall but hands caught him before he hit the steps.

His skin tingled with the electricity Zoom was emitting and Cisco struggled to get away, but Zoom’s grip was too strong, claws digging into Cisco’s flesh. He hauled Cisco to his feet and loomed over him. 

Zoom was too tall and too big to be Barry, Cisco’s mind told him, but a more rational part reminded him that Zoom was barely even human anymore, Earth 2 Barry could have done anything to his body in the pursuit of speed. Still, Cisco couldn’t believe it. Barry could never be Zoom, the Barry he knew would end his own life before he let himself become something like Zoom. 

But Earth 2 Barry wasn’t the Barry Cisco knew, Earth 2 Barry had probably grown up angry and confused, without Joe and Iris to balance him out. The STAR Labs accident could have affected him differently than it had on Earth Prime, it could have warped his brain, or maybe Wells’ speed enhancing serum had done something.

“Cisco,” Zoom said, a sibilant growl. He grabbed Cisco’s face in one hand, squeezing hard enough to bruise. “Not my Cisco,” Zoom said, putting his face close to Cisco’s.

No, Cisco didn’t like the sound of that. If Barry was Zoom and they were together before he had become a monster then was it possible Cisco was making tech for him voluntarily?

Zoom raised a clawed hand and Cisco flinched, but Zoom only ran it through the air above Cisco’s body. “Ahhh, you switched, I can feel it. Very impressive, you must be very powerful. Maybe I’ll keep you.”

Cisco tried to pull away from his grip, “Whatever you’ve done to him, I won’t let you do to me,” he spat.

Zoom laughed and Cisco never wanted to hear that sound again. “I haven’t done anything to him. Cisco loves me, he wants to keep me safe. It was so easy to take him away from the world and lock him up here, he never fought me once.”

“You’re lying.” But Cisco knew. The evidence was everywhere. And without STAR Labs, Caitlin and Dr. Wells… He didn’t want to think that he could be twisted so easily but maybe Earth 2 Cisco was as different from him as Zoom was from Barry.

“I’m not. You’ll see.” Zoom moved suddenly, and Cisco tried to gasp but he couldn’t get any air. Zoom moved nothing like Barry, the force and speed was terrifying and Cisco didn’t think he could survive even a second more of it, no human body was meant to withstand this. But just as soon as it started it stopped, and he found himself in the cortex, Zoom still gripping him hard.

Everyone shouted Cisco’s name at the same time. They were all standing behind the bank of computers and it reminded Cisco way too much of Zoom taunting them with Barry’s limp body not too long ago. Earth 2 Cisco was the only one sitting, he look weak limbed and out of it, like they had sedated him Cisco didn’t want to think about why. His doppleganger seemed to perk up a little when he saw Zoom, and Cisco felt sick.

“Let him go, Zoom,” Barry commanded, taking a threatening step forward.

“Will you fight me for him?” Zoom asked, sounding amused. “That didn’t go well for you last time, hero. Lucky for you, I don’t want him. He’s no good to me.” He tossed Cisco to the floor and Cisco scrambled to his feet, backing against the wall. In a flash Barry was standing between Cisco and Zoom, but Zoom was no longer paying attention to them. In the same moment he had pushed Cisco away he had scooped up Earth 2 Cisco who had his arms wrapped around Zoom’s neck, face tucked into Zoom’s chest.

No one tried to stop him, and Cisco had the sinking feeling that they had all figured out the same thing Cisco had. He didn’t want to think about what Earth 2 Cisco might have said or done while he was on Earth Prime, didn’t want to think about how desperate he had probably been to get back to Zoom, why they had had to sedate him. He couldn’t think about any of it because he didn’t want to vomit on the cortex’s shiny floor.

Zoom disappeared with Earth 2 Cisco in a streak of blue lightning and the tension in the room relaxed by a fraction. Barry turned and put a hand on Cisco’s shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. “Are you okay?”

Cisco looked past Barry’s shoulder to Iris, Caitlin, and Joe, all watching him with concern, Harry standing further back with a more unreadable look on his face. Cisco couldn’t hold their gaze, so he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. He wasn’t okay and he wasn’t sure when he would be able to look any of them in the eye again.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I'm SORRY.
> 
>  
> 
> Come [ talk to me ](http://aldrea-falan.tumblr.com/ask) about my Barry-is-Zoom theory ~~before it gets jossed.~~


End file.
